Ange Postecoglou wants Spurs to follow Liverpool and Arsenal blueprint

Ange Postecoglou has made a confident claim about the process underway at Tottenham Hotspur and explained what his role is when things are not going according to plan.

Ange Postecoglou is a man under pressure

It is fair to say that the pressure is now slowly but surely mounting on Postecoglou, with Tottenham’s results away from home failing to improve in his second season so far.

The Australian might point to the fact that performances have improved and suggest that results will follow sooner rather than later.

However, with football being a results-based industry, he would be aware that he would not get too much leeway if Tottenham continued to struggle for consistency.

Postecoglou defiant about Tottenham’s process

The Spurs boss pointed to Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp as well as Mikel Arteta’s project at Arsenal as examples of how teams have benefited by showing faith in their project despite the early hiccups.

The 59-year-old insisted that setbacks are unavoidable and even necessary for Tottenham to get to the level they want to.

When asked about the growing scrutiny on Spurs, Postecoglou told Football.London: “You need to separate the emotion of what people feel and the way that people respond externally.

“You need to be clear in what your objective is and stick to that process. If anyone can show me where things can turn around in 15 months or in two years, any club, apart from maybe City where it took Pep [Guardiola] a year, which is like an eternity to be fair for Pep. It doesn’t exist.

“There is a formula there. If you want to look at recent history, there’s Liverpool, there’s Arsenal. There are plenty of others who have not stuck to a process, big clubs and small clubs, and haven’t got any progress. There’s evidence on both sides. It’s not easy. It’s because invariably scrutiny comes and criticism comes when things don’t run smoothly because people want them to run smoothly.

“How you react through that process is really important. All I can do is stay really clear-headed about what my role in that is and the club to stay aligned with that. That’s what I feel.

“We’re aligned in what we’re trying to achieve here and we know it’s not going to be easy. That does not mean, though, that this is going to take five years. I’m not saying that, but you can’t fast-track experience. You can’t fast-track maturity. All these things need time and you’ve just got to stay true.”

Postecoglou accepts criticism

The Tottenham boss acknowledged that some of the criticism might be valid and that it is not healthy to bury one’s head in the sand.

In fact, he explained that he enjoys being challenged, pointing out that the struggles are part of what makes accomplishments sweeter.

He added: “You can’t just do that with just cheerleading either. You can’t expect that everyone’s going to say, I’d say failure lost because you’re on this path. That’s not healthy either.

“You need the criticism. You need the scrutiny from outside. How you deal with it is much more important than trying to alleviate it. Maybe it’s valid criticism.

“Introspectively, you’re looking at is there something there? Whether it’s valid or not valid, if you just jump at the first time because you’re going, ‘Oh my God, if we lose again, they’re going to come for us’, then there isn’t really a process. All you’re trying to do is create some sort of utopia that doesn’t exist in football.

“This is part of the process. I keep saying I enjoy this bit because this is the hard bit and there has to be a hard bit. Every story has its struggle. How far that struggle is or how much that struggle is, no one knows. I don’t know. No one knows. You get through it and then you’ll reap the rewards.

“How you deal with this process is critical to getting those rewards because, like I said, there’s evidence on both sides pretty clear that you can have sustained success going a certain way or you can chase success going another way. There’s pretty clear results about which approach works better.”

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